Roundtrips with N’glish 02/05/2012 // Mexico and the Pyramids

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11Apr2012Apr 12, 2012

Hello All,

I hope this roundtrip finds you well. I’m here in Argentina (Buenos Aires) and I’m thinking back on my last trip to Mexico. Just wanted to share with you the experience I had in Teothihuacan. That’s less than an hour drive from Mexico City. Matt from Bublé crew invited us for the tour on our day off between shows. Warren, Garfield, David and James answered the call of adventure. I say that because the others decided to stay in their hotel rooms for various reasons that are beyond me!

My philosophy is this:
If I’m in Rome: do I want to see the Coliseum?
If I’m in Cairo: do I want to see the pyramids?
If I wasn’t from New York, would I want to see the Statue of Liberty?

Yes, yes, yes…especially if the other choice is chill out in my hotel room.

Anyway, as I was saying…we answered the call to adventure.

A trip to see the Pyramids in Mexico. I had no idea we were going to see an entire city! At least where a buzzing ancient city was. What an amazing site!

From the time we got there, we were met by our tour guide, Gorila our proud and enthusiastic native. His passion on the tour made me smile. I wondered how many times he had done this tour…probably hundreds! But who would know? His zeal was on fiyah! Not to mention he walked so fast for a heavy set man. Just keeping up with him was serious work.

I admit that I climbed a few heights that I wish that I didn’t. As an active member of the Afraid of Heights Club, I usually know when something is too high, but I was deceived a few times and had to come down practically crawling or sitting to go down steps.

Please take a moment to see this picture:
I’m surveying the land from this huge height, but I’m also wondering where are the rails up here! I’m scared to death! Be cool Roger. Look at the little 6yr old boy just walking down the steps by himself or look at the mom who’s actually walking down while carrying two kids in her arms.

Deep breathe…because none of that helps me and didn’t seem to help my brother, either—because he joined me, and we both looked like little kids sliding on our butts on every step to get down.

After thought? Still glad I did it….it was a great thing to see up there and can’t possibly be put into words.

The three biggest highlights for the day:

1. Gorila knew the exact position to stand to create an echo that was mind boggling. I guess because the returning sound wasn’t what he just did. It turned into something else. But the speed of the return was consistent with his voice or I wouldn’t have believed it was coming from him at all! He explained that the original architects were skilled in math and science and built this particular chamber with the perfect dimensions so that such a sound was possible. The acoustics were amazing. He demonstrated this at another time showing us how far his voice could travel. Clearly it was the perfect place to speak to thousands of people at a time.

2. During one of the ceremonies from inside one of the pyramids (very surreal to be inside), he played a beautiful tune on an instrument that resembled a flute. I think I will remember the sound of it for the rest of my life. So pure, so simple, so melodic, but not easily duplicated. The instrument combined with the acoustics inside were just beauty that can’t be captured outside of the natural (no pun intended).

3. Last, we came to the biggest pyramid on the location: 260 steps up. David and Garfield got to the top before Warren and I had got to the first rest spot. I think we both must have been considering, “Yea, one quarter the way is good enough for me.” Then I decide I should at least go half way up. Once I got there, it looked easier to go up than down…so I just did it. Warren followed and yes, we eventually hit the top and joined the others. We took some photos and video and felt pretty good about ourselves :-).

While I was up there I started to think about how and why anyone would build such an enormous “anything”…and how long did it take? The answers I suppose are still the same today. Why do we build skyscrapers and other huge towers?

Whatever the reason, they are to be marveled. They often defy what we believe are the laws of nature and that in itself I suppose is enough reason for nations and empires to want to do it.

So much history to behold from up there…I tried to soak it in before being taken over by the thoughts of coming down.

Well, here I am in Argentina, so you know I came down….that’s all I’ll say about that :-) But what a nice way to spend a day off. It doesn’t always work out, but when it does, it’s beautiful!

There’s something about history, people and nature…I have so much more appreciation for the knowledge than I did when I was in school and it always draws me closer to my creator. The world is too magnificent to think of anything less!

I look forward to seeing many more of the marvels and wonders of planet earth as I travel and hopefully sharing them with you.